And why "trust your ears"? Odds are that your ears suck. We are a bunch of middle-aged men who have been to too many loud concerts. I would trust a seven year old girl's ears before I would trust anybody here, because they can hear lots of things that we simply can't anymore.

this! Above needed some love. too true which is why i tend to ask my wife for critiques. classically trained musician with ears that are actually still good. and she pulls no punches

QFt to both of you. I've been to an audiologist and know how much hearing loss I have, and after close to 2,000 loud rock concerts I'm not surprised.

Perfectly stated Jon. Both the short quote above and really your entire synopsis of "what we do" and how it gets listened to and what we are going for anyway. We are not reproducing reality, we are capturing a digital representation of an electro-acoustical (mechanical) event and then reproducing it electronically, which can introduce more sonic changes, then presenting an illusion of the event for human ears to process via a playback system which can further introduce more sonic changes.

I'm totally with you on binaural. I wish we had never stopped bringing our Sennheiser binaural's (MKE2002) to GD shows after we bought "better" microphones. Each and every one of the binaural shows has more spatial accuracy than any 20 of the C422 recordings. Of course, as you say, we aren't seeking spatial accuracy as much as something we can playback on our car stereos.

With all of you here, I would pose the question as to what is considered "warmth" in recording sound. It seems typical for you all to mention it when talking about specific equipment and combinations (preamps, mics, etc.). But I have read several contradicting statements to such. Without mentioning names or instances, I've heard the V2 & V3 described as warm or transparent. The same for several other popular preamps. Maybe this is also a "my ear vs your ear" concept, but do we know if there is any real consensus on this site with the descriptor words used for preamp sound qualities? I would like to see a post, if not already out there, that has links to a handful of recordings which exhibit clear examples of warmth, transparency, accuracy, etc. That would be a nice starting point for developing subjective agreement on sound.

Chris, I think your original idea and questions have been pulled way out of where you asked from. For the part I played in the mini thread jack I apologize.Then to provide some answer to your concept:Warmth and Transparency are tough to describe audiologically, as that is all individual experience. As mentioned upthread, from a pre-amp design pov, Doug Oade does a good job explaining it in terms of the circuit modifications they do:http://www.oade.com/

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The Marantz PMD 661MKII Concert MOD upgrade rebuilds the XLR inputs using high speed, low noise and very low distortion op amps that dramatically improve fine detail and clarity. The result is a very detailed, open 3D soundstage. Components are selected by ear to optimize detail and imaging for recording all types of music where transparency is needed. (Edit- i.e transparent)

The Marantz PMD 661MKII Warm MOD upgrade rebuilds the XLR inputs using high speed, low noise and very low distortion FET op amps that dramatically improve fine detail and clarity. the Warm MODs preamp chips use FETs so they sound very much like a tube preamp with the warm sound that offers a fat rounded bass tone, a sweet silky high end and the expansive soundstage found in high end tube circuits. Components are selected by ear to optimize detail and imaging for recording all types of music when a warm tone is needed.

I bolded the parts which are relevant to your questions.Hopefully others can link to some good examples.

With all of you here, I would pose the question as to what is considered "warmth" in recording sound. It seems typical for you all to mention it when talking about specific equipment and combinations (preamps, mics, etc.). But I have read several contradicting statements to such. Without mentioning names or instances, I've heard the V2 & V3 described as warm or transparent. The same for several other popular preamps. Maybe this is also a "my ear vs your ear" concept, but do we know if there is any real consensus on this site with the descriptor words used for preamp sound qualities? I would like to see a post, if not already out there, that has links to a handful of recordings which exhibit clear examples of warmth, transparency, accuracy, etc. That would be a nice starting point for developing subjective agreement on sound.

Chris, I think your original idea and questions have been pulled way out of where you asked from. For the part I played in the mini thread jack I apologize.Then to provide some answer to your concept:Warmth and Transparency are tough to describe audiologically, as that is all individual experience. As mentioned upthread, from a pre-amp design pov, Doug Oade does a good job explaining it in terms of the circuit modifications they do:http://www.oade.com/

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The Marantz PMD 661MKII Concert MOD upgrade rebuilds the XLR inputs using high speed, low noise and very low distortion op amps that dramatically improve fine detail and clarity. The result is a very detailed, open 3D soundstage. Components are selected by ear to optimize detail and imaging for recording all types of music where transparency is needed. (Edit- i.e transparent)

The Marantz PMD 661MKII Warm MOD upgrade rebuilds the XLR inputs using high speed, low noise and very low distortion FET op amps that dramatically improve fine detail and clarity. the Warm MODs preamp chips use FETs so they sound very much like a tube preamp with the warm sound that offers a fat rounded bass tone, a sweet silky high end and the expansive soundstage found in high end tube circuits. Components are selected by ear to optimize detail and imaging for recording all types of music when a warm tone is needed.

I bolded the parts which are relevant to your questions.Hopefully others can link to some good examples.

Thanks. I don't mind the hijack because I am typically learning from it, and I'm just happy to see others taking their time and energy to help out. But, I'm glad you came back to my questions. I will look up some shows using these two different MOD recorders and hopefully be able to identify the differences. I would still love to get a few glaring examples from some of you.

The above snippet from Doug Oade really does a nice job of describing the sound it seems you are looking for. As I may have mentioned, a used warm mod (or new) is a great way to start figuring out what sound you like...i find it plenty warm but also detailed enough. Best of luck!

The above snippet from Doug Oade really does a nice job of describing the sound it seems you are looking for. As I may have mentioned, a used warm mod (or new) is a great way to start figuring out what sound you like...i find it plenty warm but also detailed enough. Best of luck!

I thought it was great to see a glimpse of the old MakersMarc the one that would say things like the AD2K sounds like a wire. You used to be a real firecracker in your younger years.

After spending some time listening to several recordings of various MODs, I definitely understand what is considered "warm" sound. It is with I was thinking it was. I enjoy it, but likely as a change of pace from time to time, or when mixing with a 2nd pair of mics. While it is smoother and may be easier on the ears, I definitely feel it isn't necessarily as "accurate" as the sound in the venue. That can be a pro or a con. Some easy ways to hear the differentiation is to listen to shows with the UA-5 Oade warm mod vs concert mod. I think I would pick up a UA-5 Oade warm mod if one came available. Wouldn't be a large investment and would allow for experimentation in my typical venues and genre. I wouldn't want to mod my dr680 because I would be stuck with that characteristic whether I wanted it or not. Regardless of the type of external preamp, I do feel that most all of them add a certain power and drive to recordings that otherwise aren't there with the recorder alone. That is something I desire. Maybe I just need to learn how to better post process and create a set of EQ standards for different sound.

The other route to pursue is to see how close you can get to the characteristic sound of using the device by manipulation of the resulting file (be that characteristic "warm" or otherwise). EQ is so powerful because it can, as Jon mentions, do more to modify the sound in a specifically directed and powerful way to make one mic sound more like another than a preamp swap would, but also because it can specifically target problems such as minimizing problematic resonances and tailor problematic frequency ranges. Say you find the stereotypical AKG "sizzle" to be a nuisance (perhaps somewhat aggravated by the signal chain you are using). Find the frequencies contributing to the sensation of "too much sizzle" and carefully adjust them so they aren't quite as prominent, but with care so as to avoid introducing unwanted perceptual changes affecting the general frequency range which surrounds the resonance. The even somewhat more artistic side has some parallels with visual complementary color theory in that one can also learn to adjust complementary frequency ranges in entirely different regions of the spectrum which perceptively affect the original area of interest. This takes listening skill and lots of playing around time to develop, but all powerful tools require skill before they can be used responsibly.

Thinking about what "warm" means in terms of sound, or what "transparent" or "brittle" or "muddy" or "spitty" means, can help in developing a sort of wordless mental assessment for describing these kinds of timbre aspects. Especially in combination with playing around with EQ. Does "warm" just mean strong bass and less emphasized treble? Does a carefully sculpted lower treble have anything to do with it? Does mid-range manipulation have more of an effect on "clarity" than chopping off bass and boosting treble?

What I'm suggesting here is this- If you find a Oade warm-mod UA5 (or whatever) and use it and hear a difference in comparison with another preamp, you are presented with a great potential learning opportunity. Try to manipulate each file afterwards so that it sounds like the other. Try to get close as possible. In doing that you will hone your EQ application and other skills. You'll also begin to get a feel for what is more easily manipulated to sound similar and what is not easy or even impossible. Some of that is tied to the knowledge of what can be done and how to go about doing it, but a lot of it will come from trial and error playing around, learning the tools, learning to understand what you are hearing, what to listen for, and finding trends, basic relationships, and the like.EQ is only one aspect, albeit the most powerful and easily learned. Compression perceptually affects tone as well as dynamics. Transient modification is fancy targeted compression. Tube emulation is an easy route to make things sound "warm", "transformer-ish", "phat", etc. Exiters or other harmonic generators "air" and "sparkle". All technically introduce distortions- good sounding euphonious distortions if tastefully applied. Technically the original sound has already been distorted by simply recording it. Don't worry too much about trashing some sort of magical signal purity. Gear specifications help determine the measurable accuracy of throughput and are the way to gauge signal purity, and the appropriate place for that is in initial selection of the gear (which is not to say ears should be excluded from that process). But by contrast, this is the point where the maxim "Use your ears" applies fully! At this point it we are fully in the realm of artful manipulation in pursuit of good sound.

Regardless if you want to do that kind of thing on a regular basis or not, if at all (I already hear the counter argument- "I don't want to have to do any of that stuff to my recordings"), that kind of knowledge provides a deeper awareness of the nuts and bolts of how sound and hearing works, what can and cannot be manipulated easily, and dispels much of the mystery surrounding the "sound of gear itself". I may not choose to not invest the time to do that kind of stuff on a particular recording, but I have a better idea of what I can do, how much effort it takes, and can make an informed decision on what is appropriate.. and I won't hesitate to EQ it.

My apologies for further derail, but with respect to DATBRAD I'd like to further clarify the bits below. Jon's post above explains much of this in a technical sense, but I'll try to do so from a somewhat less technical perspective-

[snip] By mathematical specs alone, a note played by a trumpet at the same amplitude and pitch as a French horn should sound identical. Same for a note played by a violin versus a cello. Using the measurement tools that report specs, there would be no difference between any two instruments of the same type (strings/strings or woodwinds/woodwinds) playing the same note at the same pitch and amplitude. It's easy to dismiss the opinions of someone's ears, which explains why contestants in singing reality shows that cannot hear that they are singing off key are so pissed when they are told the truth.

No offence, but this totally incorrect and completely off base.

Really? Please explain why you say that.

We all know from experience that the same note played by a trumpet, French horn, violin and cello do not sound identical. But it can also be explained why that is so, in a mathematical sense, quite precisely. Accurately enough in fact, that we can go on to fully synthesize versions of those sounds which can be convincing emulations the real thing. If you can't accept that, you must at least acknowledge that we can get close. Close enough that most would people would agree on what instrument is being simulated. I'm not talking about sampling. That's recording and playback manipulation of recorded sounds and can be completely convincing when done well. I'm talking about fully synthesizing a sound, and to be able to do that (or rather to design the machine which does it) a mathematical understanding of the characteristics of the sound to be emulated is required. Jon mentioned a number of those characteristics including the time-envelope aspects of a sound commonly simplified into Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Release components, as well as noise components such as resinous bow scratching, plucking noise, fingering noises, and other mechanical noises, but the primary characteristics of the timbre of a sound are described by the relationship of the harmonics above the fundamental. If not for the harmonics, a snippet of sustained sound cut out of an imaginary recording of all those instruments (cutting out a snippet mid-note avoids time envelope and most of the noise variables) would sound like a characterless sine wave as you suggest. And a characterless sine wave or some other basic wave shape is the typical starting point of synthesis (additive synthesis anyway) onto which various harmonics can be added with various levels relationships until the timbre of the sound is close to that of the original instrument.

Check out this video- https://youtu.be/yYf9ij7S5Zs?t=5m. It's simply the first that came up in a search, but the link starts at the point where the narrator shows plots of the different harmonic makeup of the sound produced by several instruments playing the same note. These plots represent mathematical measurements which correlate directly with the characteristic timbre of each instrument. Rephrasing your first line I was disagreeing with, these are mathematical specs alone, which when plotted, visually describe why a note played by a trumpet at the same amplitude and pitch as a French horn do not sound identical. Using the measurement tools that report specs, there is an obvious, quantifiable difference between any two instruments, even two of the same type (strings/strings or woodwinds/woodwinds) playing the same note at the same pitch and amplitude.

To dive deep, consider that digital recording and reproduction is at it's most basic mathematical core based upon the decomposition of sound into a vast number of numeric values, and reconstruction of the original analog waveform by a huge number of overlapping sine waves- a sufficient amount of them that the result is indistinguishable from the analog input waveform within the bandwidth limits of the system.

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Would you consider results of test recordings using the mathematical technique called the Fourier Transform as getting to the meat of what the brain processes from sounds hitting the inner ear?

No. Yet the scope of that question greatly exceeds what were talking about here (and I think hints at the disconnect). We're no where near what happens in brains and ears here, we're just talking about a signal passing through an amplifier in a recording chain. And once the problem is broken down to that level we have excellent mathematical measures of the accuracy of how well a components output reflects what is fed into it. What happens once the sound leaves the speaker is a whole 'nother ball of wax and way more complex, both before it reaches the eardrum and far far more so afterwards.

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Since this depth of measurement isn't on gear specs, wouldn't you agree that currently published specs are limited in what they can describe?

The capability for measuring far far beyond the capability of all human senses exists. There is some problem in correlating human perception with the appropriate measurements, but that problem is rapidly disappearing. Unfortunately, the practical problem is that for the perceptual qualities which we can match closely to the appropriate measurement, manufacturers don't have much motivation to provide truly meaningful specs which can be compared in a straightforward way.

While I have never owned AKGs, I did run a warm mod UA-5 for several years. If I could go back in time I would choose a transparent mod instead. That could be due to me mostly flying KM140s, but I came to feel that that the warm mod "muddied" up my recordings, although I enjoyed them originally.

I think you should have left the bold part out. Transformer-ish and tubes are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The warm/fat sound of tubes is primarily due to distortion that transformers do not normally/easily reproduce.

I wonder how much of this conversation is on based legacy information, that preamp "color" makes up for a hardware EQ system that would have been needed in the past. It is really easy to have great audio editing software for a low price or even free. Depending on the situation, 10-30 years ago, editing your tapes audio was a time issue or economically unfeasible. Maybe it didn't matter that much what the end result was as an audiophile probably had equipment to color the playback anyways. If one wants to buy/mod a pre to fit mics, which fits the recorder for that sound, great. Building a tool is cool. But, is it needed now or just a historical carry over of taping traditions? It's probably not needed in the current era as Gutbucket and Jon have pointed to above. I have so many free audio tools I couldn't possibly learn all of them, I think 80% of my software is totally ignored. That's a huge difference from audio editing even 10 years ago.

Regardless if you want to do that kind of thing on a regular basis or not, if at all (I already hear the counter argument- "I don't want to have to do any of that stuff to my recordings"), that kind of knowledge provides a deeper awareness of the nuts and bolts of how sound and hearing works, what can and cannot be manipulated easily, and dispels much of the mystery surrounding the "sound of gear itself". I may not choose to not invest the time to do that kind of stuff on a particular recording, but I have a better idea of what I can do, how much effort it takes, and can make an informed decision on what is appropriate.. and I won't hesitate to EQ it.

This is good to hear, because I have had an internal battle going on regarding EQ. Though most show details don't include the term "EQ" in their processing comments, I always figure they do some sort of EQ before posting. So, I wondered, do they leave out the "EQ" intentionally? If so, is it because its not considered appropriate to mess with the captured recording by introducing your own personal tweeks to the sound. Maybe that is a carryover from the arrogant few with higher quality (expensive) gear, allowing them to maintain their taping dominance over the recording peasants. Just kidding, obviously no one does that...

I have spent lots of time on trial periods of various software working the EQ and other processing features. Without any formal training or experience, I have slowely learned a few things. The first was to NOT post my show after the initial processing attempt. I found that I grossly overprocessed my recordings. Returning later to revise the recordings has allowed me pull back some of the processing input. But, as we all know, the learning curve takes a shit ton of time! Its probably this part of the taping addition that puts more strain on our outside relationships (women, work, sleep) than the actual concerts themselves. So, to end this I will say the I am glad to get some support in the notion of investing time and energy into the post processing. It would be MOST EXCELLENT to see a group of you start to put together a series of short video tutorials of various processing essentials and how they affect the recordings specific to what we do. Maybe some standards with Audacity, Audition, Izotope, etc. Just a thougt from someone who seems to be alone on an island in this big ocean of taping. Except for this forum of course. LOL

I think what is noted in the recording notes is in large part legacy based and defacto standardized, a direct descendant of historical trading modes, sort of another extension of the angle Limit35 mentions above, and with which I agree. The most basic info I find commonly lacking in the recording notes which I always look for is mention of the microphone setup configuration, as that makes a larger contribution to the sound of the resulting recording (and is important to know if trying to make a judgement as a taper) than other inconsequential stuff commonly listed in far more detail in the transfer lineage. I'd just like to see general spacing and angle info, or note of DIN or NOS or ORTF or whatever in addition to the model and make of the microphones. Many tapers do note that, but many others don't.

There are two three good counter arguments for EQing and other post manipulation other than straight normalizing, tracking and fading that I can think of:1) Don't want additional post work burden.2) Obscures the "as it sounds raw" output of the microphones. 3) Don't want to unintentionally do more harm than good.

We've covered one, and each taper can make their own choice there, depending on their own mindset and the value they attach to the recording. Argument two only matters to other tapers trying to make generalized gear comparisons by listening to a number of recordings made with the same microphones, and with the caveat of realizing there are many other variables which may make such comparisons useless- room, band, pa, soundguy, mic config, etc. It's argument three which I think is the strongest counter argument, relates directly into what you just mentioned, and the most problematic.

It's relatively easy to determine that the recording sounds better to you after your post manipulations, but is it really better in an objective sense, for everyone else? And although some aspects are better, have I made other things worse? Have I limited the options for what someone else can do to it later if they so choose? The potential problem I see is not so much that the changes introduced are personal tweaks that other folks may not agree with which, because it's accepted as okay to personally tweak everything else- deciding to record or not, what gear to use, what configuration to use, where to setup, how to manage levels, even tracking and fading decisions. Rather it's trying to make sure you aren't fooling yourself, or correcting for something specific only to your own hearing or the deficiencies of your monitoring setup. Those are very real and difficult to assess potential problems, but using a less that optimal setup configuration or recording from a less than optimal location is also a real problem which strongly effects the resulting recording, and although some may ask why you chose to record using a particular microphone configuration rather than the one they think would be best, none would suggest that the choice of whichever microphone setup you use isn't something you should be deciding for yourself.

Listen again later to confirm you're on the right track, check things on a few different systems to develop a sense of what you need to work around in your own preferences and the deficiencies of your monitoring system used for the editing. And when in doubt, it may be a good safe bet to dial back your corrections and euphonious tweaks a bit.

Along those lines I've dreamed of an alternative universe where its easy to save/distribute the raw unedited recording along with a companion configuration file. That configuration file would contain all ancillary information, set information, recording notes, all editing decisions from track points and fades to EQ, compression, spectral edits etc, mixdown information if the recording is more than two channels or mid/side or whatever. That way you could produce multiple configuration files for the same source (want a dynamics limited binarual head-phone version suitable for jogging as well as a wide-dynamics version for speaker playback?, want a 4-channel quad mix version?) and anyone else could go back and modify the original source material however they like. That would provide an escape hatch against argument three- you can always make a new updated configuration file as your skill set and monitoring improve, or as better and more powerful software tools become available. And so can anyone else, without harm to the raw original or access to the same tools you used.

If we were to try and make that a reality, it would be difficult in the real world to arrive at a universal open-source metadata format which specifies many of those things accurately. Tracking, fades, notes, photos, and that kind of thing isn't hard, we already have cue sheets and such, it's the EQ, compression, mixing and other audio edits which is the problem there. But even that problem easily avoided by including a WAV in the configuration file which is the same length as the raw source file and contains all those changes in differential form. You wouldn't want to listen to that on its own, it would be like listening to the inverse of the EQ curve and everything else applied. Instead the player would simply read both files and mix them together to output the appropriately edited version, in addition to following the tracking and fade information located elsewhere in the config file. Other users could start from scratch with their own edits and produce an entirely new differential WAV, or start from your differential file and tweak it more to their liking without needing to have the exact plugins you used. Either way the original is always goes untouched.